Halfway (Again)

Well, I'm going to try and update more often, if for no other reason than to remember what I'm thinking now. Blogging is painful. I don't process information in the same way a blog post requires me to. Bah.

This post comes out of a great class morning prayer and a great day in general. (future Peter: class night 1st sem junior year, "class mp the day after class mp") My back hurts right now though.

This is a mid-semester recap. Something I've been trying to do this semester is go to morning prayer every day (!) and, in general, execute more discipline spiritually. This includes actually being diligent about what/how/for whom I'm praying, actually being deliberate about what I read in Scripture rather than "Why yes, I have in fact read my Bible today" and fighting the immature, selfish desires deeply rooted in my nature. Well, I'm trying. Why?

I want more joy. I just deleted my little side blurb on this blog because it was macabre and bleak. I take myself too seriously too often, and I worry too much about things I have no control over.

My prayer requests going into CFC Revival a couple weekends ago were this: "More joy, more discipline. More love. But also a realization that the notion that I can control my own spiritual welfare through enacting a certain level of discipline is the same notion that I can control my sin and my salvation. Both of these notions are wrong." I've realized that when I slip into selfishness (which often includes self-loathing) and temptation spiritually aren't really when I lose discipline (even though that's evidence of it) but instead when I begin to think "I'm a pretty good Christian" or, alternatively, "I'm a pretty bad Christian but I've got it under control, for the most part". God has taught me that I own nothing. I am totally and completely powerless. Even when I feel convicted with His Word or blessed with His presence, it isn't mine - it's all a gift, it's all grace. And so I realized that while I am ready to accept that I need Christ in many, many areas of my life: personal relationships, discipline, etc.; I also realized that I don't think I need Christ in other areas - doctrinal soundness, intellectual life, etc. But I do! And this, in fact, also is grace - the fact that nothing I do on my own will ever satisfy God, that is. It makes Christ's grace appear all the more magnificent. (2 Cor 12:9)

70 Years for Babylon

I realize now that what drives me to hang on to those little things is a deep-seated fear of...well, everything, really. I am afraid I will never change. I am afraid that there is no God. I am afraid that I will never achieve what I want to. I am afraid of rejection. I am deeply, deeply afraid of not knowing. I am afraid of many things; but mostly, I am afraid of myself.

Steve updated his status with this the other day. It's the halfway-again application - because it should always be the application. "In hindsight, the regret is always that you gave too little, never that you gave too much." More than anything else, I am afraid of myself - I am afraid of regret. But I don't ever want to look back on this time in 10 years and wish I had been more faithful. I don't ever want that, ever, ever, ever. But there's a problem: the dilemma here becomes again how to be driven by God's grace, and not human fear.

The New Covenant

But God's grace and mercy is brand spanking new every single second, of every single minute, of every single hour of every single day! It is extraordinarily counterintuitive to seek God in prayer right after I've sinned in some grand or exorbitant way. That counter-intuitiveness, really, is a fear of grace (http://theresurgence.com/2010/10/17/dont-create-a-new-law-for-yourself). How can I be afraid of grace when the Spirit lives in me?

'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus

Jesus! Jesus! How I trust HIM!

How I've proved him o'er and o'er!

Jesus, Jesus! Precious Jesus!

O, for faith to trust him more!

I want more joy. I want to be driven by grace. I want to be driven by the gospel. I want to be driven by the knowledge that I am loved more than I can ever comprehend. And I want to be driven by the knowledge that Christ is vast, Christ is great, and Christ is sovereign (Piper: the consummation of history is the adoration of Christ! (Isa 43:6-7)) I am once more thankful that His grace is sufficient for me. It is sufficient for my fears, too. I am thankful that these light and momentary troubles are preparing for us an eternal weight of glory that far outweighs everything I know! And I am thankful (but oh, how I wish I recognized it more often!) that Christ is worth every atom of every ounce of everything I am or will do. I am thankful most of all that He is fairer still today, still fairer tomorrow than today, and thankful that he will only ever increase in beauty and glory until one day, we see him unveiled, face-to-face. Radiance!

"seeing the worthiness of God and the worthlessness of everything else in comparison"

DA Carson on What the Centre of the Gospel Is

"The heart of the gospel is what God has done in Jesus, supremely in his death and resurrection. Period. It is not personal testimony about our repentance; it is not a few words about our faith response; it is not obedience; it is not the cultural mandate or any other mandate. Repentance, faith, and obedience are of course essential, and must be rightly related in the light of Scripture, but they are not the good news. The gospel is the good news about what God has done. Because of what God has done in Christ Jesus, the gospel necessarily includes the good that has been secured by Christ and his cross work. "

Too often I have the notion that coming back to the cross is something made of repentance first and foremost - repent, repent, repent, repent, obey, obey, obey, and I'll be back by the green pastures and still waters of humble obedience and faith to God. But that's not true - this makes my faith humanly driven, it makes my salvation and God's repeated and continued faithfulness and graciousness something that's driven by myself, rather than Him. To focus on the incorrect notion that the gospel requires repentance is to belittle the sacrifice of Christ. Repentance doesn't drive the gospel, because human actions don't drive the gospel. God does.

I hope I can remember this.

EDIT: of course, functionally speaking, it's impossible to be saved without repentance. What I aim to say instead is that it's only the first step. God does the rest.